The exhibition studied in particular the works made in stone and bronze following Flanagan’s return to carving after he went to look at a stone in Pietrasanta in the Carra mountains, for a commission at Rawlins School in Quorn, Leicestershire in 1973. Seen within the sculptural tradition, Flanagan’s choice of stone for a public square could not be more natural, but in the context of his earlier work it is more surprising. In 1958, at Birmingham College of Art, he had studied modelling, casting and carving, but in the work he produced at St Martin’s School of Art and throughout the sixties he had set aside the conventional materials and methods of sculpture, not least the cut and welded steel of his contemporaries, choosing rather ‘to work direct in manageable materials, in a relatively inexpensive way’.

The 'soft' sculptures produced during this time employed canvas, hessian, plaster, sand, rope and wood; materials cut, poured, stacked, arranged and propped. Shapes arrived in a natural way, following the behaviour of his materials or using the traditional procedures of the building and construction trade, but rejecting both the geometrical rigour of Minimalism and the specialised ‘artistic’ skill of the carver or modeller.

His interest is in the evolving language of sculpture and he used materials he felt appropriate to a particular moment. His choice of stone and bronze in the atmosphere of the seventies may be seen in direct parallel to the modest materials and processes by which he chose to circumvent prevailing dogma and style in the sixties. Flanagan’s forms migrate from one medium to the next, transformed with each new interpretation, on paper, in clay, metal, stone or bronze.

Further reading
Britain at the Venice Biennale 1895-1996, edited by Sophie Bowness and Clive Phillpot, The British Council, London 1995. ISBN 0 86355 283 8

www.britishcouncil.org/biennale/pages/venice_biennale.html

 

Collection Artist(s)

Glossary

  • Bronze

    A metal alloy made from copper with up to two-thirds tin, often with other small amounts of other metals. Commonly used in casting. A work cast in bronze is sometimes referred to as 'a bronze'.

  • Canvas

    A piece of cloth woven from flax, hemp or cotton fibres. The word has generally come to refer to any piece of firm, loosely woven fabric used to paint on. Its surface is typically prepared for painting by priming with a ground.

  • Medium

    Refers to either the material used to create a work of art, craft or design, i.e. oil, bronze, earthenware, silk; or the technique employed i.e. collage, etching, carving. In painting the medium refers to the binder for the pigment, e.g. oil, egg, acrylic dispersion. The plural form is media.

  • Metal

    Metal is a medium frequently used by artists to make art works - from sculpture to printmaking. Surfaces can display an array of colours and textures, and are capable of being polished to a high gloss; metal can be melted, cast, or fused, hammered into thin sheets, or drawn into wire.

  • Sculpture

    A three-dimensional work of art. Such works may be carved, modelled, constructed, or cast. Sculptures can also be described as assemblage, in the round, relief, and made in a huge variety of media. Contemporary practice also includes live elements, as in Gilbert & George 'Living Sculpture' as well as broadcast work, radio or sound sculpture.